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Fiery Afghan bus crash kills 45, Taliban blamed

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoAbdul Khaliq Kandahari | AP photoAfghan police and army soldiers inspect a burned bus after it collided with the wreckage of a truck that was attacked by Taliban insurgents in Maiwand district, Afghanistan.

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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A bus collided today with the wreckage of a truck that had been
attacked by Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan, killing 45 people aboard the bus in a fiery
crash, officials said.

The battered oil tanker had been left in the middle of a narrow road near the border of
Kandahar and Helmand provinces for several days after insurgents attacked it. Police considered the
area too dangerous to enter, the officials said.

Before sunrise today, the bus smashed into the truck and burst into flames, said Abdul Razaq,
the provincial police chief of Kandahar.

Police, soldiers and ambulances rushed to the crash site in a desolate area. Many of the
victims were burned beyond recognition and it will be difficult to establish their identities,
Razaq said.

One survivor, Mohammad Habib, cried as he searched for his brother.

"I don't care about my belongings and money that were burned inside the bus, but please help
me find my brother, dead or alive," he told AP Television News. "How will I face my mother without
him?"

Forty-five people were killed and 10 injured, said Javeed Faisal, the spokesman for the
governor of Kandahar province. He spoke to The Associated Press at Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar
city where many of the victims, including men, women and children, were taken.

The bus began its journey in the capital of Helmand province and was to stop in Kandahar
city, then travel north to Kabul, the Afghan capital, Razaq said.

Traffic accidents are common in Afghanistan, where rules of the road are often ignored by a
chaotic mix of cars, trucks, bicycles, pedestrians and animals. Roads outside the capital are often
poorly maintained and travelers are subject to roadside bombs and highway robberies.

Last September, a bus and truck collided and burst into flames on a highway in the eastern
province of Ghazni, killing at least 51 people.

Also today, the U.S.-led international military coalition said Afghan and foreign forces
arrested about 10 insurgents in the past two days in four provinces, including several Taliban
fighters in Kandahar.